ARC Addington

Ian Bell, the ARC fund director, came up from Warwickshire to help out at the Breakfast this week. Ian come up last year but I didnt manage to get a picture of him in his apron! I wasnt going to miss the opportunity again, and thought I would put it on here for all to see!!
Whilst Ian was up he spent time after his breakfast duties visiting families and patrons of the fund in the area. ARC Addington do a fantastic job helping farming families with rural housing and emergency help when disaster strikes like flooding, or in 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease.
The REAL Food and Farming project Ive been involved with over the last 4 years have also been fundraising for ARC and the latest donation of £900 was presented to Ian at the breakfast.
This year the charity celebrate their tenth anniversary and more information about them can be found on their website www.arc-addington.org.uk

Farmhouse Breakfst - St Georges Court

L to R Ian Bell - ARC Addington, Andy Woodward - CEO Farm Stay UK, Gary Verity- CEO Welcome to Yorkshire, David Wilkins - Yorks Air Ambulance


This week has been Farmhouse Breakfast Week. A national campaign run by the Home Grown Cereals Authoirty. Last year we held a 3 day charity fundraiser here at Scaife Hall Farm and Lindsey of St Georges Court offered to do the same thing again this year at her home St Georges Court Grantley.
The chosen charities for this year were the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and The ARC Addington Fund. Representatives from both came to help the Farm Stay members serve over 200 breakfasts. The food was all be sourced from Yorkshire producers and they were extremely generous with much of it donated or sold to us at cost.
All in all it was a great way to raise money and awareness for charity, to raise the profile of St Georges Court and Farm Stay properties and support Yorkshire food producers.
At the end of 3 days we all had very sore feet, were very tired but we had lots of laughs and great fun!

Washburn Heritage Centre

Last night was a rather momentous occasion in the Washburn Valley. The newly built Washburn Heritage Centre was finally able to open its doors and hold its first event.
The hard working committee have been busy for 6 years now pulling together funding which included a Lottery Grant and theres been endless great parties and fund raising events. We were told theres the inevitable snagging list but it was hard to tell to the untrained eye.
Its absolutely beautiful and the centre links into the church very sympathetically and means now that there are far more opportunities for events within the Church itself. The tea room facilities will be a very welcome stop for the many walkers and visitors into the area and a footpath has been installed from the centre down through the woods to join up with the reservoir side path.
Last nights talk, Life and Death in Fewston, was by the Oesteoarchaeologists who had to excavate the graveyard to make room for the construction. It was very fascinating insight into the lives and deaths of past Fewston residents. There much more research to do before the skeletons are reburied but looking at the capacity crowd its clear to see theres an awful lot of interest in the present valley residents. Theres much more information on the new website www.washburnvalley.org.
(Thank you to Clive Robinson for the photos)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all!! Its taken me a while to get round to this but better late than never I guess.
Now its a round of decorating all the guest rooms and spring cleaning ( a bit early I know) and generally getting ready before we start lambing in a months time.
I'd better go get my paint brushes out and get on!